Hawaii County will remain a defendant in attorney Pueo Kai McGuire’s federal lawsuit, while claims against four officials named in the case have been dismissed. U.S. District Judge Jill Otake set jury selection for April 19, 2027. The rulings determine which defendants remain in the case, not whether McGuire’s allegations are true, the Hawaii Tribune-Herald reported.
The legal question behind the county’s continued role
A Hawaiʻi Supreme Court ruling addressed whether county prosecutors represent the county or the state when they prepare to prosecute or prosecute violations of state law. The court answered that they act for the county in those circumstances. That state-law determination does not resolve the disputed facts in McGuire’s suit, according to the court’s published decision.
Claims and allegations still at issue
McGuire, who filed the federal lawsuit in 2023 and practices law as Kai McGuire, seeks damages from the county for malicious prosecution, fabrication of evidence, abuse of process, defamation, and intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress. The Tribune-Herald reported that Otake rejected the county’s request to dismiss all claims against it but dismissed the claims against Mitch Roth, Kelden Waltjen, Kate Perazich and Sylvia Wan individually.
The suit stems from a 2020 sexual-assault prosecution. McGuire was charged on January 22, 2020, and indicted on January 29 on first-, third- and fourth-degree sexual-assault charges arising from an alleged encounter at his Hilo home on January 19. McGuire’s suit alleges the encounter was consensual and that the complainant gave false accounts to investigators. Those assertions are allegations, not findings by the court, as described by the Tribune-Herald.
The lawsuit also alleges that Wan, then a deputy prosecutor, urged the detective to proceed with charges despite concerns about the complainant’s credibility, and did so to harm McGuire and benefit the political campaigns of Roth and Waltjen. The Tribune-Herald reported that the criminal charges were dismissed with prejudice on July 16, 2021, after Perazich sought dismissal three days earlier on justice-related grounds; dismissal with prejudice means the charges cannot be refiled.
Hawaii County disputes McGuire’s claims. In its response to his latest amended complaint, the county denied them, the Tribune-Herald reported. The merits of those claims remain for the case to resolve.
